Newsrooms are low on resources, apply those resources efficiently. Your 500 word re-write of the same article your “competitor,” as you call them, is un-necessary and a total waste of time.
Anthony De Rosa, from a short very good and to-the-point post “Stop matching”. I like De Rosa doesn’t even have to dwell on the issue of giving other news sources credit for work. He suggests the ROI of “matching” isn’t there.